AS Governor-general Sir Peter Cosgrove delivers his Anzac Day address on Tuesday at one of Australia’s most important wartime cemeteries, his mind will flicker, once or twice, to a grave a few metres away.

And after finishing his very public speech, the highly respected former military man will walk over to that plot, for a far more personal encounter.

The name on the stone is Cosgrove.

It is the resting-place of Sir Peter’s Uncle Bill, a flight sergeant in the Royal Australian Air Force killed in a desperate and vital, but relatively unknown, chapter of our World War II story.

Born in Randwick, NSW on Armistice Day 1918, Bill was a star football player for the Richmond Tigers, still celebrated by the club today; a funny and feisty man with a mischievous streak yet devoted to his family — wife Dot and baby girl, Madeleine.

Rolled together in one man, these are the qualities of the quintessential Aussie hero.

Sir Peter — in Papua New Guinea ahead of this year’s 75th anniversary of the Kokoda Track campaign — is modest about this, but acknowledges the “boisterous and charismatic” Bill was “a very brave man”, adding, intriguingly: “He was also an adventurer and somewhat piratical.”

And, it would appear, something of a visionary — especially when it came to punting.

“He made an open-boat escape from Sumatra or Java when the Japanese invaded, with a group of other Royal Australian Air Force personnel,” said Sir Peter.

“After a long journey down the Australian coast they eventually made landfall somewhere in mid-Western Australia.

Bill Cosgrove was on a pre-dawn mission when his plane crashed soon after take-off, killing him and a fellow airman.Source:Supplied

“Possibly the only notable outcome from the journey was that apparently Bill dreamt of the winner of the Melbourne Cup to be held later that year in 1942. He backed it and it won.”

A true story, confirmed by Bill’s daughter Madeleine Huxtable, 76, who will be visiting his grave at Bomana War Cemetery, where 3779 casualties of Australia’s struggle to stave off the Japanese are buried, for the first time with her prestigious cousin.

“I never knew him, I was two when he was killed,” said Madeleine.

“He has always just been a hero in my life.”

She pauses and laughs; “He was also a bit of a show-off.”

‘He has always just been a hero in my life’, says Madeleine Huxtable of about her father Bill Cosgrove.Source:News Corp Australia

Adelaide-based great-grandmother Madeleine reveals her father had a healthy disdain for military authority — ironic given his nephew became the chief of the Australian Defence Force.

“They took his sergeant’s stripes away — and gave them back — so many times he ended up sticking them on instead of sewing them on,” she said before revealing a number of his antics.

They include swiping his brother’s (Sir Peter’s artilleryman father, John) golf clubs from barracks in Melbourne, to pawn them and fund a night out with his wife; and using a training plane while based at Wagga to visit a family friend at Whitfield, buzzing low down the town’s high street while “she was waving her broom at him”.

Best of all was when he felt lonely shortly before Madeleine was born, so told his commanding officer he needed leave because his wife had given birth to a son.

It was duly granted, he spent a few days with his wife then returned to base much happier.

However, days later Dot went into labour for real, and there were complications — so the doctors called Bill’s now highly confused CO and said he needed to come home right away to be with his wife and daughter … oops.

Bill Cosgrove has been remembered as a hero, family man and a great sportsman. Picture: Mark BrakeSource:News Corp Australia

Perhaps he inherited his theatrical bent from his father, Sir Peter and Madeleine’s grandpa John, a well-known actor of the early 1900s. Yet it was the football field that called loudest.

“Bill was a great sportsman; he played for Richmond and won accolades by no other than the great Jack Dyer,” said sports lover and Sydney Roosters member Sir Peter, referring to the man held up by AFL fans as “the greatest Tiger of all”.

The admiration went both ways: in the war Bill would name his planes (mainly Beaufighter strike aircraft) after Dyer; and daub them with the Tigers’ slogan “Eat ‘Em Alive.”

“Jack Dyer 1 carried me safely through Libya, Jack Dyer 11 gave the Japs a thrashing in Sumatra, Jack Dyer 111 stoushed them in Java, and Jack Dyer 1V will give them hell as long as I am flying this grand ship,” Bill told the Sporting Globe writer Allan Jones in 1943.

The quip shows just how accomplished Bill was as a warrior — four crucial campaigns, plus that epic seaborne escape from the Japanese in 1942.

Five weeks at sea, and the all-important dream that enabled a winning punt on 1942 Cup champion Colonus.

His value as a soldier explains in part why top brass would tolerate his mischief.

Nine months after that win, Bill was killed on a mission in Papua New Guinea, his plane vanishing after taking off from Goodenough Island in the early hours of August 11.

His body was found with the wreckage later.

Bill Cosgrove, right, with his crew on their Beaufighter during World War II.Source:Supplied

The air war off Papua New Guinea is little-known compared to the well-told stories of our infantry on the Kokoda Track campaign, which lasted from July-November 1942.

Yet without the actions of units like 75 Squadron beforehand, or Bill’s 30 Squadron after, the impact of the Track may have been very different.

Every year, in April, Australians travel in our hearts and minds: to Gallipoli; to France; to North Africa … and to Kokoda.

And we think of the men and women who served there and wonder if we could do the same.

That is what Sir Peter will be doing next week.

“My uncle’s story is very typical of the many thousands of men and women who served in Papua New Guinea and the nearby islands,” he said.

“Everybody thrust into the perilous dangers and requirements of the New Guinea Campaign had to grit their teeth and do their job.

“Frequently, for them when they looked over their shoulder, there was no one else there to do the job and if they had keen eyesight, they would see Australia and understand the importance that they held their ground.”

Lest we forget.

Fire destroys RSL days before Anzac Day0:46

A fire has caused massive damage to the Ivanhoe RSL as it went up in flames early Friday morning. Footage: David Taylor via Twitter